


The Never Named City

by WhiteravenGreywolf



Series: Lovecraftian Ruby/Christina [1]
Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Getting Back Together, Horror, Lovecraftian, Past Relationship(s), Pulp Science Fiction, Spelunking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteravenGreywolf/pseuds/WhiteravenGreywolf
Summary: Letitia has gone missing and Ruby is tired of waiting around for the police to find her. Reluctantly, she asks for a bit of help from her ex, and Christina agrees, so long as she comes with her. Together they drive to Massachusetts to investigate Leti's disappearance and hopefully find her before it's too late.
Relationships: Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite
Series: Lovecraftian Ruby/Christina [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028940
Comments: 107
Kudos: 175





	1. The Disappearance of Letitia Lewis

**Author's Note:**

> Surprised? Me too, actually, I thought I wouldn't be done with this story until the end of the week, at least! But since yesterday was a holiday I powered through and wrote 5 chapters plus the epilogue, finishing this story had breakneck speed. I had to fix the ending this morning but it is now ready to be posted!  
> It's my first time writing exes getting back together in a story, I hope I managed to make it work and that it's not super annoying how obvious they should still be together. Also, my first time writing a truly Lovecraftian/pulp sci-fi story. I hope you'll all enjoy it. As usual, I'll be posting a chapter per day.  
> What's next for me then? Well, I'm not sure. I thought about maybe writing a Boarding School AU set in the 1960s where Ruby would be the first black student allowed in the school, but I seriously don't feel competent at all to write such a story. The Gods know I'm the last person who probably should write such a story. If you feel you'll be better at writing it than I am, then please by all means take this prompt and make it good, I'm offering it up.  
> Anyway, as I said I hope you'll enjoy and I'll see you tomorrow for the next chapter!

"They couldn't find her."

  
Ruby clicked her tongue. This was the opposite of what she'd wanted to hear. Marvin continued:

  
"They found her car, but apparently there was nothing inside that could help them locate her. And Ruby... They're calling off the search."

  
"Like Hell they are! It's their job!"

  
"It's been over a week, Ruby. They have nothing, and it's a heavily inhabited area. If she'd come out of the forest someone would have seen her. They've searched every inch of it."

  
Ruby listened to what her brother had to say, but it didn't mean she liked any of it.

  
"They didn't search every inch of the place, because if they had, they would have found her! What if she's trapped under rubble or something?"

  
"She didn't have any supplies with her. If she got trapped under something... after a week..."

  
"Don't say it."

  
"Ruby..."

  
"Fine! If they won't find her then I will."

  
She hung up on her brother before she could get any angrier. She wanted to throw her phone away but she refrained, instead she sighed, willing the fury out of her lungs.

  
Leti had disappeared a week ago. She was in Massachusetts, taking pictures of the nature around Mount Everett for a magazine. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that. She'd been there for a few days, walking up and down the many open trails, taking pictures. And then, she'd stopped replying to Ruby's messages, hadn't answered any calls. Her phone was found in her car, the car parked in the bushes at the foot of the mountain. Her camera was missing. She was missing. And the police were calling off the search.

  
Ruby began pacing around her apartment. She would not give up on her sister like that. The mere thought of Leti struggling under a falling rock, fighting to get out, calling for help but being unheard... Ruby couldn't stand it. She could not and would not stand here and wait until her little sister's body was recovered. She would find her before it was too late.

  
She went to her bedroom and began packing a bag. She was already thinking about what would be the faster way to get to Massachusetts. The bus would be longer but cheaper. She would take the bus then, and walk to the top of Mount Everett and back a hundred times if she had to. Until she found Leti, alive. Once she'd packed the clothes she thought she would need, she went looking for the shoebox under her bed, where she kept her emergency money. It was an old habit she'd gotten from her mom. The box contained some four hundred dollars, and she packed it all. She paused when she noticed the picture hidden underneath. She hadn't seen this photo in a long time. It had been taken a few years old, by Leti, during a music festival. In the photo, Ruby was smiling, looking at the band playing on stage, while her ex kissed her cheek.

  
Ruby felt her heart clench. It felt as though this picture had been taken in another life. She closed off the box and shoved it back under her bed. As she stood up and stuffed the wad of bills in her suitcase, a little insidious voice whispered in her mind 'Christina could help'. Ruby shushed the little voice. Christina could not help because Christina was too busy. She was always too busy. Too busy for Ruby anyway. Why else would they have broken up? But Christina grew up in Massachusetts, she had an influence there, people that might help find Leti. Ruby wanted to scream. How was it that the only person who could help her was the only person whom she didn't want to see?

  
She swallowed and felt her throat was constricted tighter than she'd thought. Too many conflicting emotions were going on in her mind. For Leti, she decided, she could swallow her pride. She could ask Christina for help. However, she didn't promise that she wouldn't break something if the blonde refused to help.

* * *

Christina was done giving a lecture on the Khazneh of Petra and sending her students on their way. It was her last class of the day, but the thought of the mountain of papers she had to grade waiting in her home office made her want to take her time before going home. The theater quieted when most if not all of the students walked out. Christina was packing her things when the sound of footsteps echoing into the room. She smiled, wondering who had forgotten their jacket. When she looked up, however, her smile faded.

  
Ruby was standing at the bottom of the steps and coming closer. Christina focused back on her bag, snapping the straps shut loudly as if it would prevent Ruby from coming any closer and talking to her.

  
"What ancient civilization are you teaching about these days?" Ruby asked as she came to stop by Christina's desk.

  
"The Greeks, still, I'm just expanding on their influence. But you're not here to talk about that, are you?"

  
Christina shifted her heavy bag on the table, making a loud bang before she picked it up and heaved it on her shoulder.

  
"Leti's disappeared," Ruby said. "Last week. The police couldn't find her so they're calling off the search."

  
"I'm sorry, Ruby," Christina said, with true sorrow in her voice.

  
"I'm going out there. I'm going to find her. But since she disappeared in Massachusetts and your family has some influence there..."

  
Christina sighed through her nose. It already made a lot more sense. Of course Ruby wanted a favor.

  
"You want me to pull a few strings."

  
Christina was visibly aggravated by the request.

  
"When was the last time we spoke?"

  
She crossed her arms, taking a defensive stance.

  
"I'm genuinely asking. Because I don't think I need to remind you that things ended badly between us."

  
"I know I'm asking a lot and I know that you hate when people want favors from you. Don't do it for me. Do it for Leti, who could be stuck dying as we speak."

  
Christina sighed again.

  
"I'll do it. I'll call a few people, see what I can find. But I'm coming with you."

  
Ruby opened her mouth to protest but Christina cut her off.

  
"If I'm doing this then I'm coming with you. Because I know that if I don't, you're going to get into trouble and be stuck behind bars when every minute counts."

  
Christina walked toward the exit, brushing past Ruby who protested:

  
"That's completely false."

  
"You won't stop until you get your way. I'll just make sure that you do."

* * *

Before they left Chicago, Christina made a quick stop home to grab a few things. Ruby stayed in the car, declining a chance to see what their old house looked like now. Ruby didn't imagine that it had changed much. Christina wasn't the decorating type. If anything, there might just be more books and papers everywhere than there already was eighteen months ago. When Christina returned behind the wheel after throwing a suitcase in the trunk, she was on the phone with someone. Her voice had taken its authoritarian quality that she used when she meant business. It still sent warm chills down Ruby's spine.

  
"Delilah, a young woman's life is on the line... Yes and please reminds him what my father did for his reelection campaign... Thank you, and please give him my best."

  
She hung up and sighed.

  
"She'll call back when she has the file."

  
Delilah did call back, as they were nearing Cleveland and Ruby had taken the wheel. They'd agreed that they would not stop, and drive on through the night, switching seats every few hours. All the information they needed had been sent to Christina through an email. They went over the information after stopping at a drive-in, Christina sharing all the facts in between two mouthfuls of fries.

  
"Her car was found at the edge of the Taconic Trail, a bit hidden behind the trees. It was found by a family passing by, they alerted the police thinking someone may have dumped the car there."

  
Ruby rolled her eyes. It was a rental. And Marvin had to pay for the damage to the paint Leti cause when she tried doing cross-country with a Prius.

  
"They found her driver's license in the car, along with a map of the area, her phone, and the key to her hotel room. After investigating the room, where they found her suitcase and all of her things, a search party was sent around the whole Taconic Trail State Park, but they couldn't find anything..."

  
"More like they didn't want to," Ruby complained.

  
Christina finished her mouthful and washed it down with a sip of her soda before she asked:

  
"What do you want to try first?"

  
"We need to check where her car was left, and near it. They didn't find her camera, and she paid an extravagant of money for that camera."

  
"I remember."

  
"So she left the car with it. She left her car to take some photos, and something happened then."

  
Christina nodded, as she could only concur with Ruby's hypothesis.

  
"You think someone tried to silence her?" she asked.

  
"You know how she is. She might have seen something she wasn't supposed to see. Might have even been police-related, which is why they can't find her. Or they won't."

  
Christina sipped more soda and found with frustration that the straw made that stupid sucking sound, meaning her cup was almost empty.

  
"If we find her," Christina began tentatively. "And she's... just promise me something."

  
"What?"

  
"Let me deal with it. Just look away if you can, if it's not too late. I'll call the police, I'll arrange for everything. I just don't want you to see her... like that."

  
Ruby swallowed thickly.

  
"She won't be. Leti's many things but this whole disappearing business isn't like her. If I know anything about my sister, is that she's out there, fighting to come back to us."

* * *

They switched two hours later. Ruby finally got a chance to eat her dinner, as cold as it might have been. Then, she curled in the passenger seat, and let a week's worth of sleepless nights lull her to sleep. Soon enough she was snoring lightly, her back to Christina. Christina lowered the radio to it's lowest audible setting and drove as smoothly as she could.

  
Memories of trips to California and Canada filled her mind. Eighteen months of regret, guilt, and loneliness disappeared in the blink of an eye. For one second, she allowed herself to believe that they hadn't happened. Then, the blinding lights of a car on the other side of the highway made the silver hood of the car shine. Christina's attention snapped back to the road, her heart jumping in her chest. She was still in her lane, everything was fine.

  
The truth was, she hadn't agreed to do this for Leti. She liked the younger woman well enough, on account that she was the younger sister of the woman she loved. One might even say she'd owe her, after what had happened two years prior. She didn't want anything bad to happen to her. But if she'd decided to help, and come along, it was for Ruby. It was always for Ruby. She could only imagine what would happen if they found Leti's dead body. And she certainly didn't want Ruby to be alone when that happened. She was far more skeptical than Ruby. There were certain things that even a fighter like Letitia couldn't survive. The odds of finding her alive, now, were critically small.

  
She gave them a month. A month should be enough for Ruby to finally realize that Leti couldn't be recovered, and to move on. And Christina would support her through it, be her shoulder to cry on, or even her punching bag if she needed to be. Because she knew the moment Ruby would realize that this was hopeless would be violent, in one form or another, and she would need someone who understood.

  
She drove for another three hours, sparing glances at Ruby every so often. Ruby woke up once when they slowed down to pass a road toll, before going back to sleep soon after. When Christina was too tired to drive, she didn't hesitate to pull over and wake Ruby up to switch up. Ruby grumbled, but after a cup of coffee from a nearby vending machine, she was ready to take the next segment.

  
"Do you mind if I turn the music back up?" Ruby asked as she settled in the driver's seat.

  
Christina already curled up in the passenger's seat, her jacket thrown over her like a blanket, shook her head.

  
"I'm so tired I think I could fall asleep at a metal rock concert right now."

  
Ruby chuckled.

  
"I'll wake you up in a few hours."

  
Christina smiled and leaned more thoroughly in the seat. Unlike Ruby, she was turned so her back was against the car door. She brought the jacket higher, curling into an even tighter ball, as Ruby left the highway rest stop. Soon enough, and despite the music, Christina was out.

  
Ruby didn't want to admit, but she was glad the blonde had decided to come with her. As the miles between her and Leti's last known location shrank, she realized she might not have been able to do it on her own. And maybe she could have gone to Marvin's and drag him to Mount Everett herself, but Christina was alright company. She could ignore the pangs of her heart until they found Leti. She could.


	2. The Pine Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christina and Ruby arrive at Mount Everett in the morning, ready to search for any signs of Leti.

They reached the foot of Mount Everett just after eight in the morning. Ruby was driving. Christina was still curled into the passenger's seat, but wide awake and listening to the news on the local radio. They heard nothing about Leti being found. They'd stopped by a gas station to buy food and get some coffee about two hours earlier when it'd become clear that neither of them would fall back to sleep.

  
The sun was up, still climbing over the mountains when Ruby stopped the car at the edge of the road. They stepped out, stretching tiredly. Beside them was a forest, where the grass on the ground had been flattened by something. Leti's car. The car itself had been taken away to the pound. The flattened grass left by the tires was easy enough to spot.

  
Christina made sure her car was locked before she stepped away from the side of the road, and into the forest. It was a pine forest. The trees were tall and large, ancient, they'd survived when their brethren had been torn down to make the road. They welcomed moss on their dark trunks and mushroom at their feet. Their needles grew high toward the sky, and the air was cold in their shadows.

  
Ruby followed Christina. She walked quickly to where the car had been abandoned. Then, she began searching behind every nearby tree, scrubbing the ground with the sole of her shoes, looking for anything that might have gone forgotten.

  
"I don't think we'll find anything here," Christina said as she looked up at the cloudless sky. "If there's a place the police must have searched pretty well, it's here."

  
"You never know."

  
Christina could only nod.

  
"It's true."

  
They searched the area for an hour, making wider and wider circles around the car's former location. Every time Christina lost sight of Ruby between the trees she didn't hesitate to call. One lost sister was already enough, and Christina didn't want to have to explain to Marvin how she'd lost the other one.

  
They found more garbage than could ever be carried, hidden behind a tree or inside of a stump or half-buried under the soft earth. Metal cans and plastic bottles mostly. Glass shards Ruby spent an ungodly amount of time scrutinizing until she finally admitted that Christina was right, and it was just a shattered beer bottle. The sound of birds chirping about accompanied their searching.

  
Christina kept a close watch on the time, and when they'd turned up nothing after an hour, she called out to Ruby, who was searching through a bush some three hundred feet away:

  
"Ruby? I think we should search somewhere else."

  
Ruby continued parting the bush like hair about to be braided. Once she was sure there was nothing to be found, she sighed with frustration and began making her way toward Christina.

  
"What's the nearest walking trail?" Ruby asked.

  
"I don't know. Do you want to check it out?"

  
"I just don't understand why she would have parked her car here if she wanted to take a trail."

  
Christina offered a sympathetic smile.

  
"I know. But we can't keep on wandering around here, or we could get lost too."

Ruby sighed.

  
"Fine. Let's check out the trails."

* * *

They rode from trail to trail, parking at the foot of Mount Everett and walking up and down the mountain all day. Ruby would sometimes move off of the trail, walking through the woods and searching around the trees attentively. Christina waited by the edge of the path, keeping a close eye on Ruby.

  
They stopped for lunch and sat in the car to eat what they'd bought that morning at the gas station. Ruby was silent, thoughtful, and Christina wasn't certain if she wanted to be left alone or be taken out of her thoughts. When their lunch break ended and Ruby was ready to climb the mountain again, Christina wanted to tell her not to lose hope, that they would find something. But her fear of causing Ruby more pain by leading her on was stronger than her will to reassure her.

  
By five in the afternoon, it felt as though they had walked the entire mountain, searched its every nook and crannies, but they'd yet to turn up anything. They climbed up the final, highest path, leading to the top of the mountain. There, wooden barriers had been placed to allow tourists to look on at the scenery without risking a dangerous fall. Ruby leaned against the barriers and looked down on the other side. There was a small cliff, then more dense pines. If someone had been staring back up at her, it would have been impossible to know.

  
She groaned, then shouted with desperation:

  
"Leti!"

  
The cry tore a hole in Christina's soul. She came to stand beside Ruby, leaning against the fence. The conditioned wood moaned but held. Christina tried her best to see what was beneath them, but she, too, could not even make out the ground.

  
"Come on, just say it."

  
Christina frowned and leaned back to look at Ruby.

  
"What is there to say?"

  
"I know what you've been thinking. But I'm not being stubborn, I know she's out there somewhere."

  
"I don't doubt that she is."

  
"But you think I'm stupid for thinking that she could still be alive, right?"

  
Christina shook her head.

  
"I never said that."

  
"But you've been thinking it. I know, I can see it on your face. You've been annoyed all day, you're regretting ever agreeing to help me."

  
Christina took Ruby's hand in hers. It was a reflex. She regretted it the moment she felt the calluses on Ruby's fingers in the palm of her hand. Ruby didn't pull away.

  
"You're right. I'm tired, and I don't think that we're going to find her just like that. If the police couldn't, and they have maps and they're trained for this, then I don't see why we could. But I don't fault you for trying. How could I? You're doing absolutely everything in your power to find your sister, and I'm in awe that you haven't given up yet, despite everything. So I don't have the right to be annoyed."

  
Ruby rolled her eyes, and after a moment, she freed her hand from Christina's grasp. Christina, not knowing what else to do, began passing her fingers over the wood banister's irregularities. The sun was still far from setting, but the wind would change soon, and the air was bound to grow colder as soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

  
"I know you don't want to," Christina started, "but we should stop for the night. Find a hotel, rest up, and come back tomorrow."

  
Ruby sighed. She knew Christina was right, but it didn't make the idea any easier to accept.

  
"Fine. You need your beauty sleep anyway."

  
Christina smiled, recognizing the jab for what it was. Ruby moved to start walking down the steps leading back to the trail. Christina's hand glided over the wood, then she flinched and groaned. Ruby turned around. Christina was shaking her hand, trying to force the pain out of her finger.

  
"I think I got a splinter," she complained.

  
Ruby rolled her eyes but took Christina's hand in hers, inspecting the wound. It wasn't a splinter, but an open cut on the tip of her middle finger, bleeding out a thin line of red. Ruby let go of Christina's hand and looked behind the banister. There, she found something stuck to the wood. It looked like a black claw, long and sharp. She wasn't certain to what kind of animal it could belong to. Perhaps it wasn't a claw at all, but a talon. She pulled it out and held it out for Christina to see. The claw wasn't arched but an almost straight line, jagged like a knife, as long as a thumb.

  
"Here, your splinter."

  
Christina took the claw in her unharmed hand carefully and looked it over. She'd never seen anything like it before.

  
"I'd pocket it but I'm scared of cutting myself again if I try to get it out of my pocket."

  
Ruby rolled her eyes and began making her way back down the mountain. Christina followed, keeping the claw carefully between two fingers as she sucked the blood from her fingertip.

* * *

They drove to Williamstown and searched for a hotel there. However, Ruby had forgotten that it was nearing summer, and the town's hotel was full. They were redirected to the motel just outside of town, with a dinner attached to it. The parking seemed rather full as well, and Christina feared they were once again out of luck. But Ruby insisted they check it out. She'd hate for them to sleep in the car for another night.

  
Christina parked the car where she could. They hopped off and walked up to the small office. Inside, the motel clerk was sorting out files and reservations. Christina thought it didn't bod well. The clerk, an older woman, looked up when she heard them arrive and put on her best customer smile.

  
"Good afternoon, what can I do for you?"

  
"We're looking for a room for the night," Christina explained as she leaned over the counter. "The hotel was full but they said you might have something."

  
"You don't have a reservation?"

  
"No this is sort of an impromptu trip."

  
Behind her, Ruby was looking at an abandoned newspaper a table, next to fliers for the various attractions in the region. She didn't have to flip through it to see the story about the disappearance of Leti. Police calls off the search for missing photographer, the title said in bold letters.

  
The motel clerk pulled her ledger open and began searching through it.

  
"Well, I guess you're in luck. All my reservations for the day have arrived, and we have a room left."

  
Christina looked back at Ruby. They exchanged an awkward glance. Together in the same motel room? Ruby gave a slight if reluctant nod and Christina turned back to the clerk.

  
"We'll take it."

  
She filled in their information, paid for the room, and was handed the key. They stopped by the car to get their suitcases. They climbed up the stairs to the first floor, where their room was situated. 116. The door was sun-bleached red, the numbers hung in gold at eye level. Christina struggled with the key for a moment, then finally, she swung the door open, holding her breath.

  
Two queen-sized beds sat side by side against the wall, with a window on the opposite wall hidden by a curtain. There was an old TV set across from the beds, and the bathroom was near the front door.

  
"Oh thank God," Ruby said with a sigh of relief at the sight of the beds.

  
Christina raised an eyebrow.

  
"Glad to know the mere thought of sharing a bed with me disgusted you so much," the blonde said as she shut the door behind them.

  
Ruby rolled her eyes, placing her suitcase on the bed near the window.

  
"Don't tell me you didn't feel at least a bit relieved when you saw two beds," Ruby said as she opened the curtains.

  
They had a perfect view of Mount Everett ahead of them, from top to bottom, every rocky outcrop and pine tree. Ruby felt her heart clench in her chest at the sight of the mountain, and so she shut the blinds again. Christina left her suitcase near the other bed and went to check out the bathroom. It wasn't luxurious, but it was functional and clean, and she was dying to take a shower.

  
"I wouldn't have cared either way," she replied, switching the lights in the bathroom off.

  
"Well I do," Ruby said as she sat down on the bed. "I know how you get. You can't keep your hands to yourself."

  
"I can and I would have," Christina said. "We're not together. I know it, and you know it. We should be able to share a bed as friends."

  
Christina sat down on her bed, imitating Ruby and taking off her shoes.

  
"Are we, though?" Ruby asked.

  
"Are we friends?" Christina replied.

  
It was true that they hadn't talked since their break-up. Neither had attempted to contact the other. Christina was determined to let Ruby live her life, even if she wasn't in any part of it.

  
"I'd want us to be if you want to."

  
Ruby sighed.

  
"I'll think about it, alright?"

  
Christina smiled. It was more than she could hope for. She stood up from the bed and stretched, her shirt riding up and revealing pale skin. She'd changed clothes at the gas station that morning because there was no way she was wandering through the woods in a pantsuit and a polo shirt.

  
"Can I take a shower or do you want to go first?"

  
Ruby's heart jumped in her chest when, for a second, she misunderstood what Christina was about to say. Then, she waved the blonde off.

  
"Go on ahead."

  
Christina disappeared into the bathroom, and a few minutes later, the sound of running water overtook the room, even with the door closed. Ruby stood up and went to get the map of the area from her bag. She spread it out on the bed, staring at the spots of green and lines and the coordinate grid. She'd marked off where they'd mostly searched with a black sharpie, but there was still so much ground to cover. Ruby took a deep breath, bracing herself against depressing thoughts, and began planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you'll forgive me for this 'sharing a bed' fakeout, it was just too good to pass and it made my sister laugh when I told her.  
> First, a disclaimer that I forgot to put in the previous chapter: I've never been to Mount Everett and its surrounding. I just saw the name on Wikipedia, thought it was funny because in the book Ruby talks about her dream of climbing Mount Everest, and rolled from there. So if I'm being unaccurate, I'm sorry.  
> Yesterday in the comments Mars dropped me a nugget of inspiration, so now I'm working on another fun, lighter Modern AU. If I power through it (which might just happen seeing as I've been wanting to do nothing but write these past few days) I won't start posting it until I'm done with posting this one. Now concerning the Boarding School AU, I saw that a few of you were interested, but I'm still on the fence. It's one thing to do research about facts and see that this is the date schools should have started desegragating but in reality it wasn't the case, and another entirely to accurately portray the experience of a young black woman in an all white all girls school in the 1960s.  
> Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you tomorrow for the next one!


	3. Green Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Christina settle for the night when something keeps Ruby from falling asleep.

Before going to dinner they stopped by a nearby shop to stock up on food for the next day. Christina bought a survival kit with a length of rope. Ruby said nothing about it. They ate at the diner beside the motel, which wasn't as packed as they had feared. They stayed there a moment, catching up, and Ruby grew almost frightened with how easily it was to fall back into their old routine. Christina spoke about some of the stupidest, funniest answers she'd gotten on tests or her latest research. Ruby didn't talk about work much, listening instead. There was a spark in Christina's blue eyes when she talked that Ruby had thought she would never see again.

  
When Christina was yawning just as much as talking, they decided to retreat to their room. Once again, Ruby wasn't feeling tired. Her nerves were keeping her awake, and their tiring day and the sporadic previous night weren't enough to ease her to sleep. She settled on the bed, resting her back against the wall with a pillow in-between, and turned on the TV. Christina didn't complain, going to the bathroom to change into her pajamas.

  
Ruby gave her a strange look when she stepped out, wearing sweat shorts and an oversize tee-shirt. Ruby recognized the tee-shirt as one she'd given her, from one of the festivals she'd helped organize.

  
"Since when do you own pajamas?" Ruby asked.

  
Christina paused as she was folding her dirty clothes neatly and placing them in a separate pile in her suitcase.

  
"Would you rather I didn't bring any?" Christina asked with a smirk.

  
Ruby decided to ignore her. The blonde closed back her suitcase then settled into bed, throwing at the feet all the layers of sheets except the thinnest one. Once she'd settled under the blankets she reached for the book she'd left on the bedside table, and began reading. After a moment, Ruby lost interest in the TV and turned it off, looking at Christina.

  
"What are you reading?"

  
Christina showed off the cover silently. It was a red book with beautifully drawn ivy growing under the title, big white letters spelling in a Gothic font _Dracula_.

  
"Dracula, hm? Haven't you read this one before?"

  
"No, actually, it was on the pile."

  
Ruby nodded. Christina's infamous pile of books she planned to read, an ever-growing pile that somehow never seemed to shrink, even though the blonde very frequently had her nose buried in a book.

  
"'Children of the Night, what music they make'", Ruby quoted from memory. "That's what George used to say when he heard us coming back late after a party."

  
Christina tried to smile at the story, but it turned into a grimace. Ruby recognized it quickly and sighed lightly. She stood up and decided to get changed into her pajamas too.

  
When she emerged out of the bathroom, she was wearing a lavender satin nightgown, and Christina raised an eyebrow. The sight of it, and Ruby in it, brought back old enjoyable memories. Still, she tried to pretend that she wasn't staring by looking down at her book again. She waited until Ruby was settled in her bed again to ask:

  
"Didn't I give you this nightgown?"

  
"I don't have that many nice summer sleepwear," Ruby said defensively.

  
"I bought it for you, it's just... nice, that you're still wearing it."

* * *

Once Christina decided she had read enough, she settled more properly and fell asleep quickly. Ruby, on the other hand, struggled to rest. She twisted and turned in bed, staring at the cracked ceiling above her, at the curtains, at Christina's sleeping form. Her eyelids were too heavy to stay close. She could feel her heart beating in her chest. She expected it to stop at any second because of how loud and fast it was. A heart couldn't keep up at this rhythm forever. The thought that Leti might have been outside for another night sent guilt through every cell of her body.

  
When sleep finally seemed to settle over her brain, a beam of green light hit her square in the eyes. She groaned and reopened her eyes. The beam was coming through a tear in the thick curtains. Ruby turned to keep her back to it, thinking that the light would disappear when the traffic light switch to red. Then, she frowned. There was no traffic light that could light up their room like that, she was absolutely certain of it.

  
Ruby left the bed and brushed aside the curtain, just enough to peek behind. Her eyes grew wide.

  
"Christina!" she called out.

  
The blonde groaned and refused to move. Ruby threw the curtains open, and Christina flinched away from the light, throwing the thin and useless blanket over her face.

  
"You didn't have to turn on the lights to go to the bathroom," she sleepily complained.

  
"It's not the room, it's the mountain!" Ruby said.

  
This finally prompted Christina to look. She was blinded by the strong green light for a second, but when her tired eyes finally adjusted, she found that Ruby was right. The top of the mountain was illuminating the whole area, like a lighthouse. The greenish hue colored the night sky. It was so strong that not a star could be seen. Even the moon was nowhere in sight.

  
While Christina was still struggling to wake up and trying to understand what could be causing the light, Ruby rushed to her suitcase and was already getting dress, not even bothering to move to the bathroom. And despite knowing her body by heart, Christina averted her eyes, choosing to look at the blinding green lights instead.

  
"We have to go see now," Ruby said as if it would motivate Christina out of bed more quickly.

  
Christina sighed.

  
"Ruby..."

  
"It could be her, Chris. She could have lit up a flare or something."

  
Christina wanted to point out that flares usually emitted a red light, and from here it wouldn't be such a bright light, but more like a red dot in the distance. But she was just waking up, and her brain wasn't yet ready to argue, especially since she knew it was useless, and Ruby would get her way anyway.

  
"Fine. Just let me put on some underwear..."

* * *

Christina drove them to the beginning of one of the trails. Ruby kept her eyes on the light as they approached their destination. She feared that it could disappear at any second, and she would wake up back in the motel. Despite the very unusual sight, it didn't seem to have attracted anyone else's attention. They were alone to park at the foot of the mountain, alone to make the climb in record time, and alone at the summit, from which the light wasn't emitting.

  
Ruby was so certain that the light came from the summit and that if they reached the top Leti would somehow be there. The sight of this empty rocky expense almost made her want to collapse. It was Christina who noticed the light was actually coming from a crack in the cliff, like a rift in the stone inside of which hundreds of green lights had been lit.  
"Do you think we can get to it?" Ruby asked as she leaned over the edge to get a good look at the hole.

  
The air was bright green, and Christina didn't need to pull a flashlight to inspect the cliff. She dared to step a bit into the slope, right before it became too abrupt to continue.

  
"I think... maybe. I'll try."

  
"Don't fall," Ruby warned.

"I don't think I get a choice in the matter," Christina replied, flashing Ruby a confident smile.

  
Still, Ruby was ready to pull out her phone and dial the emergency services just in case.

  
Christina took a deep breath, and using roots that stuck out of the stone, she placed a first, tentative step at the edge of the cliff. The small ledge was just large enough for her foot. She held her breath and waited for a second, testing her grip on the plants and her balance on her foot, before she sent her other foot forward. The tip of her shoe found purchase on another ledge. She now faced the cliff, her back to the drop and impending doom. She glanced to her left. The entrance to the cave was just five feet from her. She knew she would have to jump.

  
"Here I go..." she muttered, before taking a deep breath.

  
Giving herself as much momentum as she could, she threw herself at the entrance of the cave. She landed inside of the crevice, her shoulder hitting the rock on the other side painfully. She managed to remain upright, and let out a long sigh. She looked back up. Ruby was still standing by the edge of the cliff.

  
"Just do what I did, okay?"

  
Ruby nodded and moved as close to the edge as possible. Just like Christina, she gripped the roots of the plants. However, a few had grown brittle and snapped when she tried pulling on them. She found others, stronger ones just a bit higher. She placed one foot on the ledge, and send the other on the smaller ridge. Once there, she took a deep breath. At the entrance of the cavity, Christina was ready to pull her in, one hand solidly holding onto the stone while the other was held out, ready to reach for Ruby.

  
"It's alright," Christina assured. "It's just five feet at a downward angle. Physics says you've got this."

  
Ruby rolled her eyes but nodded. Leti could be trapped inside and in need of assistance. She leaned back and threw herself toward the entrance. Christina caught her easily and pulled her into the cavity. Ruby stayed there, chest heaving, one arm wrapped around Christina, for at least a good minute, as her eyes scanned the row of trees below them. When she thought she could move again, she finally let go of Christina and walked further into the cave.

  
The cave wasn't lit by any LED light or flare, but by moss. All of its walls, ceiling, and ground were covered with a thick carpet of moss, glowing a bright, nuclear green. It was so strong that it was almost difficult to look at it.

  
"I've never seen anything like it," Christina said, stepping closer to the nearest clump.

  
"Chris..."

  
Christina looked over to Ruby. She'd already stepped through the cave, ignoring the mats of moss, to a hole in the ground. There was a rope attached to a nearby chunk of rock, and leading straight down into the hole. Christina moved closer to the hole as well. It was an abysmal pit, seemingly leading straight down into the mountain. The strange bright moss didn't grow anywhere in it. Christina took off her backpack, where she'd placed all of the emergency and survival supplies. She pulled out a big flashlight, with a powerful beam, and lit straight down. The rope fell for about a hundred feet, before touching the ground.

  
"Do you think she went down there?" Christina asked.

  
"I wouldn't put it past her. If she got lost or stuck in a cave system, it might explain why they haven't found her."

  
Christina nodded.

  
"Let's try not to make the same mistake then."

  
Christina placed the flashlight in the side net of her bag and got a hold of the rope. She sat at the edge of the pit and got a hold of the rope between her ankles. She took a deep breath, taking one last look at Ruby before she began climbing down.

  
She managed to avoid rope burns for the most part, although she went a bit fast after the fiftieth feet, and stopped completely out of fear of hurting her hands. Once she was at the bottom, the green light from the cave above was but a faint spot of color. She pulled the flashlight again and looked around.

  
No sign of Letitia. The bottom of the pit was one dark room, high and wide like a circus tent. Not a single stalactite or stalagmite was growing from the gray stone. It was as if all the water that ever came near the pit had been absorbed by the moss, and never tricked down. A single path led out of the room, a stone corridor which curved out of sight, wide enough to pass a car through.

  
"What do you see?" Ruby shouted from above, her voice echoing into the room and coming back to her.

  
"There's a path over there. Should I check it out or do you want to come down?"

  
"No, I'm coming."

  
"Okay," Christina said, pointing the light toward Ruby. "Be careful. Don't get rope burns."

  
"You know, some of us have callouses to protect our baby-soft hands."

  
Christina rolled her eyes. Ruby made her way down without much problem. When she arrived at the bottom she rubbed her hands together, trying to get rid of the nervous moisture accumulating on her palms. Christina pointed toward the path with the flashlight.

  
"It's the only path."

  
"Then what are we waiting for?"

  
Before Ruby could continue, Christina grabbed her arm.

  
"We need to be careful, okay? I know that this is the best lead we've had all day, but if Leti really got stuck here, it could be because this path is dangerous. If we feel at any point that this could be too dangerous, or we could get stuck, we need to turn back."

  
Ruby wanted to brush Christina's worry aside. She was too excited and hopeful for caution. But the genuine concern in her blue eyes gave her a second of pause.

  
"I know. Now come on. Let's carefully find my sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! The adventure begins!  
> It's not stated explicitly but in this AU I decided that Ruby works as a music festival organizer, I thought it would fit her well.  
> I'm going to finish writing the Modern AU today and I'm still not sure about the Boarding School AU. I'm thinking of maybe taking a short break from Ruby and Christina, but then I'm scared that if I do, I'll never find a good story to write with them again... So I need to think.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you tomorrow for the next one!


	4. Crystal Clear Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Christina descend deeper under the mountain

They made their way down into the tunnel. It curved downward, again and again, almost like a spiral staircase. Nothing was obstructing it, no stalactite growing out of the stone ceiling, no stalagmite they had to skirt around. The biggest obstacle they encountered was a very large and very old spider web that Christina had no qualm breaking apart with her flashlight.

  
While they went further and further down, and there was no sign of this corridor ever ending. It never shrank, and its inclination never grew steeper, and so Christina didn't slow down to consider how deep they were. It seemed this tunnel was man-made, or at least it looked as though it had been dug out by a machine. From what Christina saw, the walls were smooth, impossibly so. No one could have come with a pickax and dug it up, and obtain such a perfectly rectangular result, at such a continuous inclination.

  
"I can't believe you might be right," she told Ruby, her voice echoing both upward and downward in the tunnel.

  
"About what?"

  
"That Leti might have seen something she wasn't supposed to. I can't even imagine what kind of machine could make a tunnel like that."

  
Ruby chuckled.

  
"What, you think this is some kind of secret government facility?"

  
Christina shrugged.

  
"I mean, now that you say it like that, it sounds stupid."

  
The air grew warmer and warmer the further down they went, which Christina expected. She was still very curious as to why there didn't seem to be any water or any signs of water. It was usual for caves to be filled with pools and rivers, to collect rainwater infiltrating through the ground, as said water would erode the stone and shape the cave. This tunnel wasn't wet, and there wasn't any sign that water had ever touched the stone. Christina began to wonder how deep they truly were if water couldn't even reach the tunnel.

  
After one last curve, the light of the torch unveiled an exit. Christina and Ruby were already sweating heavily from the heat. The exit to the tunnel wasn't as wide as the tunnel itself, merely a slit through which they had to sidle past. Christina took her backpack off before sneaking in. Ruby passed behind her, holding her breath. The stone dug against her shoulder blades, but she passed slowly and managed not to tear her shirt. She rubbed her sweaty hands on her shorts and turned around just in time to feel Christina's hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

  
While the path curved to the left, there were large basins of boiling liquid in front of them. The natural basins formed stairs down into the cave, for about fifty yards, with tiny waterfalls communicating between some of the basins. The heat was intense, prompting Ruby to take a step back. It felt like standing too close to a fire for too long, but instead of taking a few minutes to become uncomfortable, it had taken but a few seconds. Christina also took a step back. The beam of the light hit the pools. The liquid inside was thick, of a silvery color that projected the light onto the stone ceiling above.

  
"What is that?" Ruby asked, not daring to take a step closer to get a better look.

  
"I don't know... It looks like mercury, but it couldn't be."

  
"Why?"

  
"Well, first because we would already be dead from whatever gas is being emitted. And mercury's boiling point is so high we couldn't just stand there and stare at it."

  
Ruby was about to ask how Christina knew so much about mercury, then she remembered the blonde had a minor in chemistry.

  
"If these basins are leaking down into the cave, we might have to turn back."

  
"We'll get there if we get there," Ruby said as she continued down the path.

  
Christina gave the pools one last suspicious look, then followed.

* * *

The path curved away from the pools, and toward another slim opening. Christina flashed the light inside and found another dug up tunnel with extremely smooth walls. This one was in a straight line. She was starting to believe that those thin openings and exits might have on purpose. Why, she couldn't quite figure out yet.

  
Without hesitation, Ruby slid inside. Christina passed her the bag and followed. As she flashed the light at the end of the corridor, something shone back. Christina and Ruby exchanged a glance. Swiftly, they walked through the tunnel to its other hand. As the beam of the flashlight bobbed from side to side, accompanying Christina's movements, the gleam on the other side became more intense, as if they were walking toward a star.

  
They emerged into a huge cave filled with crystals. The smaller crystals were but flakes of white on the edge of the cliff they were standing on, like little mushrooms growing where they could. The biggest ones were as large as buildings, crisscrossing into a jungle of direction-less monoliths. They were for the most part transparent, though the larger ones gave off a lilac hue, while the smaller ones almost looked like salt crystals. Christina leaned over the edge of the cliff. The bottom of the cave was also covered with spiky crystals, but it wasn't too deep, perhaps no more than thirty feet. Despite the refraction of the light when she looked ahead of them, she could see another stone platform on the other side, with another tunnel.

  
"If we want to continue, we'll have to cross this."

  
She turned to Ruby, waiting for her answer.

  
"Alright. I'll go first," Ruby decided.

  
She was about to step off the platform and onto the nearest massive crystal, but Christina stopped her.

  
"Hold on."

  
She pulled the rope she'd bought out of the bag and tied it around Ruby's waist, before placing it around her waist.

  
"Great, now if one of us falls, we both fall," Ruby said with an eye roll.

  
Christina clicked her tongue with annoyance. She was growing tired of Ruby criticizing her cautiousness. Ruby, sensing the blonde's mood shifting, added nothing and stepped onto the crystal protruding out of the cliff under them. Its surface was slippery, but it was wide enough that Ruby didn't fear stepping off on accident. Christina followed. There were ten feet of rope between them, but she tried to keep it as slack as she could.

  
They climbed the first crystal with relative difficulty. Even with a low ten-degree angle, the sleek perfect surface left no good foothold to climb. Christina stopped just as Ruby was struggling to keep her balance, and pointed the light around them.

  
"Climb down here," she suggested, pointed to a nearby long quartz crystal beneath them.

  
"If we start going down we won't be able to go back up," Ruby replied.

  
She looked around them, then pointed to a crystal to their right, just a bit above them.

  
"I'm going over there."

  
Christina pointed the light toward the crystal, blinking away until her eyes weren't as blinded by the refraction. The top of the crystal was about six feet above them. Ruby would have to hit it, or she would inevitably slide off. Christina realized that maybe she really shouldn't have attached them together, because she had no hold to keep herself up and help Ruby back up.

  
Ruby took a deep breath and jumped. She reached the crystal easily, and Christina let out a breath of relief. Ruby turned around and held out her hand.

  
"Your turn."

  
Christina jumped without hesitation, clearing the distance. Ruby got a hold of her arm and helped pull her up onto the crystal. When Christina stood up, the top of her head almost crashed against the crystal above them. It was thinner than the one they were standing on, and Christina found she could wrap one hand around it, to keep herself balanced. Ruby did the same, and they progressed forward.

  
When the quartz began tilted up too much, they used the crystal above them to drag themselves forward, fingernails digging into the smooth gem. Ruby used both hands, while Christina, who also had to light their path, had to struggle with one. They reached the end of the gem with burning arms. There was another crystal just five feet from it, but it was at a dangerous angle. If Ruby jumped and went too far, or if she lost her balance and slipped down, Christina could be dragged along.

  
"We have to detach," Christina said.

  
Ruby struggled with one hand against the knot around her waist. Maybe the blonde had missed her calling as a sailor with such a good knot. Once Ruby had freed herself, she turned back to the crystal ahead of them. She moved as close to it as she could, and jumped. She went too far. She landed on a slick slide and slipped down the length of the gem with a scream. Christina struggled as close as she could to the edge.

  
"Ruby!" she called out.

  
The beam of the light struggled to pinpoint the other woman's location, as the crystals refracted it away from her position. It took a few seconds, but she finally heard:

  
"I'm alright. I'm going to climb up on the nearest crystal and I'll tell you when you can slide down."

  
Christina let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She tried to point the light toward where she'd heard Ruby.

  
"Do you see something?" she asked.

  
"Yeah, it's alright."

  
She heard Ruby heaving herself up, then her footsteps resounding against a crystal.

  
"Alright, you can go. Just be careful when you reach the end, there's another crystal. It's kind of like hitting a brick wall."

  
"Okay."

  
Christina looked down at herself and realized the rope was still tied to her waist. If it somehow got caught on something, she could end up dangling from it, or worse. She made sure her feet were static on the crystal and she tugged the flashlight under her arm. Then, she untied herself and began wrapping the rope into a bundle.

  
"What are you doing?" Ruby called out as she saw the strange motions of the light.

  
"I'm taking the rope back."

  
Christina rolled up the rope so it wouldn't unwrap, and placed the bundle across her shoulder. Because of the bag's strap, it dug into her neck, but she ignored the uncomfortable feeling and focused back on the task at hand. She swallowed and jumped. She landed just where she needed to, on the slightly slanted top of the crystal, just a few inches from the slide. Then, she sat down and pushed herself down the length of the crystal.

  
Just like Ruby had warned, there was another crystal at the end, one perpendicular to the slide. She braced herself for impact and hit the crystal shoulder first. She winced. It was the same shoulder that had hit the side of the cave earlier, and she was certain she would get a bruise later.

  
Ruby was standing on the crystal to her right, looking down at her.

  
"I think the exit is just above."

  
Christina nodded and she climbed up, still massaging her shoulder. From there, they scaled onto a series of smaller, step-like crystal, all emerging out of the cliff within two or three feet of one another. When they were close enough to the cliff Ruby climbed up, using the stone beneath to push herself up. Christina followed. Once they were both on the other side, they collapsed against the tunnel wall, heart beating frantically and legs shaking.

  
"We didn't even check to see if Leti was in here," Ruby said, out of breath and nervous.

  
Christina leaned over the edge and scanned the bottom of the cave. She saw no sign of anyone, no bloodstain or discarded item lost in the crossing. She went back to the tunnel.

  
"If we managed to cross I'm pretty sure she made it no problem."

  
Ruby nodded. Christina placed the wrapped rope back into the bag then stood up, and offered a hand to Ruby.

  
"Come on. It can't be any farther now."

* * *

The tunnel was another straight line. Christina was surprised when, halfway through, the tunnel turned into stone slabs. Those were old slabs, almost the same color as the tunnel, but easily differentiated by their shape. They covered the walls and floor. Christina stopped at the edge of the first slab and tentatively stepped on it. It was still solid ground.

  
"That's strange..." she mumbled to herself.

  
They continued, to the tunnel's exit. Christina braced for another room of crystals, or a room filled with lava and with a single rope bridge above. At this point, she was ready for anything. The exit opened onto another massive room. They arrived on a stone balcony, with stairs to their left leading to the bottom of the cave. Below them spread the monumental ruins of a city.

  
Small, broken houses made up half of the room. A single avenue in the middle seemed to cut through the city, in the direction of a giant stone building. This building seemed to be a pyramid, but only one face could be seen, as the others were either non-existent or hidden behind the edges of the cave.

  
"What the fuck is that?" Christina said in shock, eyes wide.

  
"I have no idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I can finally cross off from my bucket list "write a story with a room filled with giant crystals".  
> I appreciate that some of you are saying that it's okay if I take a break, but really, I don't feel like I want to or even need to. It's just that I know what I want to write but I also don't have a setting or a storyline for them. I tried writing something this morning but I won't continue it, as funny as it could have been. I'll keep thinking, I have at least a week worth of content up my sleeve, there's no worry. And anyway I will have to slow down on the writing because I just realized that there are only 3 weeks left to my semester and there's a ton of shit I need to work on if I want to meet the deadlines...  
> I have a surprise for you! I wrote it last night before dinner, it's short but it's fluffy. I don't want to give it all away but it's called "The Abduction of Hades", it's set in canon but the canon where we all agreed to ignore the ritual, and I hope you'll enjoy it!  
> Anyway, I'll see you guys tomorrow for the next chapter!


	5. Tomb Howlers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Christina set out to explore the pyramid

They walked down the stairs, Christina keeping a nervous eye on the city. The cave was so massive that she could barely see the stalactites on the ceiling. When they reached the bottom of the steps, they found a paved path leading to the city. There were tools and workshops on either side of the paths, from which Christina quickly deduced that this was where the stone cutters worked. And with a pyramid like the one here, it was not surprising that they had required so many stone cutters.

  
Half of her brain was imploding with excitement. She was almost certain she'd discovered an ancient city. The other half was very nervous because she had no idea who had lived there. Who could be living there. Behind her, Ruby was glancing at both sides of the road, looking for signs that Leti had been through here.

  
Every single building, from small houses to bigger storage buildings and shops, was in a ruined state. Entire walls or chunks of walls were not just crumbled, but missing. Christina passed the beam of the flashlight over web-covered tables and dusty beds, and her nervousness eased a bit. It seemed the place had been untouched for a very long time. However, they'd yet to come across any skeletons.

  
"What could have happened to cause damage like that?" Ruby asked, her eyes on a house where barely a wall was left standing, every furniture inside exposed.

  
"I don't think the houses were destroyed," Christina explained. "I think they needed the stones to finish this," she added, pointing to the pyramid.

  
Ruby shivered. They walked on to what seemed to be a town market place. There was a stone fountain in the middle. The inside was coated in the same silver liquid as the pools, but dry, like a layer of aluminum over the stone. Christina stared at the fountain, a hand on her chin, and Ruby could tell that she was thinking deeply, trying to analyze the place.

  
"Do you know what civilization this place belongs to?" Ruby asked.

  
After all, the blonde was specialized in ancient civilizations. However, Christina shook her head.

  
"That's the thing. I've never seen anything like this before. I have no idea who made this."

  
This was the most perplexing Christina had ever been. She always knew everything about everything, and when she didn't know, she was always quick to get her answers. But this place looked nothing like any of the civilizations she'd ever studied or read about. The buildings hadn't been dug out of the stone but made from stones, and she could tell that the buildings had been very longly thought through before being built because all the stones were the same dimensions. The fountain was a perfect lozenge, with no statue in its center, only a simple lozenge pillar.

  
When Christina realized she wouldn't be able to solve that mystery just yet, they walked on toward the pyramid. They were halfway to it when the beam of the light passed over an object on the ground. It was another flashlight, a modern, electric flashlight with three batteries inside. Ruby picked it up and flipped it on. It still worked.

  
"Is it Leti's?" Christina asked.

  
"I don't see who else's it could be."

  
Ruby passed the flashlight over the nearby buildings, but there was no sign of her younger sister. They both looked at the pyramid, and they knew that Leti had gone to it.

* * *

The pyramid seemed incomplete the closer they moved to it. The first seventy feet of it were recessed from the edge of the pyramid, making it seem as though it were floating. It was smooth, except for a single central band where it looked like a massive staircase led to the top. The staircase was incomplete, however, as the last ten feet hadn't been finished, leaving the staircase inaccessible. Large openings behind the unfinished staircase led inside.

  
The inside of the structure was also in stone. The entrance hall opened on a series of hallways. It was a squared room with symbols Christina had never seen before carved in a circular pattern on the ground, and a single strip over the walls.

  
"This place is huge," Christina said. "Letitia could have gone lost in here and been wandering for days easily."

  
"Give me a pen," Ruby said.

  
Christina obeyed, pulling one of her whiteboard markers from her pencil case. Ruby went up to one of the tunnels and left an arrow on it, indicating toward the exit.

  
"That way we'll know if we're walking in a circle."

  
Christina nodded.

  
"Good thinking."

  
They went into the hallway Ruby had picked. It was bigger than the smooth tunnels which had led them there. The ceiling was high but Christina couldn't see any keystone, which would have helped to support the weight of such a high ceiling. She grew worried about the integrity of the structure. It was old and it was heavy. So many stones stacked on top of one another could not be held by magic.

  
They came to an intersection, with a tunnel continuing forward and another turning to the right. Ruby left an arrow on the hallway they'd traversed, another on the hallway to the right, and they continued. Christina kept a close eye on the walls, and the frieze of symbols, which was just at her eye level. These didn't look like logographs, as hieroglyphics would be. It looked like an alphabet, as many symbols repeated often enough to look like the letters of a word. Unlike the squared architecture of the place, the symbols were full of curves which would have been impossible to carve for someone who wasn't trained in the art of it.

  
They came to another intersection and after marking their path, Ruby chose another hallway at random. It happened another three times before the idea struck Christina's mind:  
"Have you seen any doors around here?" she asked with a frown.

  
"Doors?"

  
"Yeah, like, openings into rooms. We haven't seen any so far. Or staircases. There has to be an access to the higher levels somehow."

  
Ruby shook her head.

  
"I haven't seen any."

  
Christina passed the beam of her light over the ceiling, then as far as it could light down both sides of the hallway.

  
"This place is a real labyrinth."

  
They walked on. The sound of their footsteps was the only thing they heard, though Christina mistook it many times for the sound of blood pounding in her ears. The air in the pyramid was increasingly colder, which was strange, as they were very deep underground. But the further they walked the more Christina began to tremble uncontrollably. There seemed to be a cold draft of some kind passing through the halls, and her shirt was drench with sweat, which certainly didn't help. Ruby, too, had goosebumps on her arms.

  
The first time they came to a dead-end, it had an opening at ground level, which could have certainly been crawled through. However, Ruby had no intention to crawl through it. Instead, she turned around, crossed the arrow she'd made on the wall, and they took another path. There was still no sign of any rooms or stairs, and Christina was growing anxious. How big could the base of this pyramid be, she thought. She couldn't remember seeing its summit either.

  
She continued to keep an eye on the ceiling, for fear that it would collapse over them. As they stopped at an intersection, so Ruby could mark their path, she noticed something hanging from the ceiling on the path ahead of them. It looked liked stalactites, about three feet long. Christina wondered how they had formed, since these were the first they'd encountered, and there was still no sign of water.

  
"What are you looking at?" Ruby asked when she found the blonde staring at the ceiling.

  
"The stalactites..."

  
Just as she pointed the flashlight on them again, one of them fell off. Both Christina and Ruby jumped back, despite being quite a distance away from it. They expected the deafening sound of stone exploding on stone. Instead, there was a light clicking sound. Christina pointed the beam of her flashlight to the ground, where the stalactite should have shattered.

  
There was a creature standing there, on all fours. It had long bony limbs, its skin a yellowing waxy color. The top of its skull prolonged into a spike, what Christina had mistaken for the stone stalactite. It had no eyes on its face, rather two deep dark sunken holes covered by a thin layer of skin. When its mouth opened, its jaw seemed to unhinge forward, to unveil rows of sharp, needle-like teeth. Spit trickled out and landed on the stone slabs. Its limbs ended in long, black, straight claws, dagger-like. On its side were dark circles with a thin membrane over them, like eye sockets waiting for an eye.

  
When it opened its mouth fully, a low-pitched cry broke through. It seemed to vibrate through the air. Instantly, all the nearby stalactites on the ceiling unfolded, revealing more creatures. Some jumped down, landing nimbly, while others clung to the ceiling, their jaws unhinged and ready to take a bite.

  
"Run!"

  
The two women rushed into the hallway to their right as the creatures leaped after them. Ruby was ahead, the beam of her light illuminating the way. Christina followed closely. The clicking of the creature's claws on the stone was deafening behind them. A few of them continued to howl. The sound carried around them and through the labyrinth.

  
Ruby took every turn that she came across, hoping to throw their pursuers off. The creatures were so quick that they sometimes struggled to make the turn. They skid to a stop on the stone ground then accelerated once again after their prey. They jumped from the ceiling to the walls to the ground, leaping forward with incredible ease.

  
A dead-end appeared ahead of them, and Christina's heart leaped in her throat. She ran faster, getting ahead of Ruby and stopping by the crawl space.

  
"Get in!" she shouted as Ruby caught up with her.

  
However much Ruby wanted to protest, she didn't, instead falling on her hands and knees and crawling into the small passage. Christina opened the backpack and pulled out her flare gun. She checked it was loaded with a flare, then aimed. The nearest creature leaped toward her, mouth opened wide. Christina shot. The flare hit the creature in the chest, sending it back before it continued its path down the hallway. More creatures than Christina could count were crawling toward her.

  
"Chris!" Ruby shouted from the other side of the passage.

  
Christina pushed the backpack inside and crawled after it as quickly as she could. Her frantic motions didn't seem to make her move any faster. She struggled deeper and deeper into the tunnel, as the screeches echoed behind her. With every movement she made, her knees and elbow knocked against the walls of the passage. She pushed the bag in front of her with her hands. It suddenly fell out. The exit. Christina pushed with her legs, quicker and quicker.

  
Something sharp dug into her heel. She yelled and kicked back. A growl followed. She frantically pulled herself forward. The exit was a foot from the ground, and she fell out, rolling during her fall to land on her side. When she looked up, one of the creatures was still crawling after her. Its limbs were just a bit too long to allow it to crawl comfortably, and so it struggled to exit the hole. Its teeth were gnashing in Christina's direction, spit falling on her.

  
A heavy stone suddenly collapsed on top of the creature, crushing its skull. As it crackled open, a line of whitish liquid trickled out. Ruby was standing beside it, a long stick in her hands. She'd levered the stone to close off the entrance. Christina looked at her, then back at the entrance. Between the creature and the rock, it was sealed. They heard frantic scratching on the other side, as more creatures had struggled through the passage. Christina felt around for the flashlight, her hand finding the backpack before she finally recovered the item. She crawled back and winced.

  
Ruby climbed back down a pile of stone blocks just in time to see Christina pointing the flashlight at her right foot. Blood was pouring out of small punctured holes in her thick climbing shoes.

  
"Another second and it was taking the whole foot," she tried to joke.

  
She placed the flare gun back in the backpack and struggled to her feet. However, she couldn't put her right foot anywhere near the ground without tears bubbling in her eyes.

  
"Come on, I'll fix you up," Ruby decided. "I'm assuming you have a first-aid kit in your bag."

  
Christina shook her head.

  
"There could be more of these things."

  
"You're obviously not going anywhere with blood leaking out of your heel like that. Just let me take a look."

  
Christina sighed but agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Finally some blood!  
> The Tomb Howlers (or as I called them previously the Hangers because finding names for monsters is hard) are a mix between the Protomorph (also known as Deacon) from Prometheus and the Wendigos in Until Dawn, with added elements and once again me, asking myself "how can I hide this creature in its surrounding as best as possible?".  
> This morning I started working on a new one-shot (it might just get too long again and I might have to cut it in half again). For a while, I was like "I need Christina to not have her powers but for Tic to be alive, how do I do that?" but I remember that's basically what I wrote in Broken Circle, so it's fine. Don't mind my brain. Anyway, it's an established relationship because it's what I've been meaning to write all weekend, and I won't tell you more cause I want to keep the surprise.  
> Make sure you tune in tomorrow because it's my favorite chapter, I almost cried writing it it is that beautiful, and I'll see you then!


	6. We Were Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby bandages Christina's foot and they take a break

They'd emerged in an unfinished section of the pyramid. Big stone blocks piled up in the corners as ancient metal machines, which had come to a rusted stop, lifted a few of them high up in the air. There didn't seem to be any creatures around here, but they still took the time to inspect the ceiling – an unfinished hole three stories high – for stalactites. When they found none, Ruby helped Christina against a block and sat near her.

  
"I think we're stuck in here," Christina said as she looked up at the ceiling.

  
It was mostly a distraction so as not to look at her bloodied foot, while Ruby unlaced the shoe.

  
"We can think about that later."

  
Christina bit her lower lip, keeping in a yelp of pain which still came through as a sharp inhale. Ruby removed the bloody shoe, then the bloodier sock and even more blood poured out. The creature had bit around the rounded part of the heel, hitting the bone. Christina wasn't sure how deep or hard it had bitten, and whether the bone was broken. She assumed that if it had bitten harder she wouldn't have a foot, or even a leg anymore.

  
Ruby went through the bag and pulled the small red pouch marked with a cross. She took out the antiseptic spray and a compress. Once the piece of white cloth had been heavily doused in disinfectant, she passed it over the wound. Christina wasn't ready, and she barely managed to choke in a moan. Despite cleaning away as much of the blood as possible, it continued to flow out of the holes. The feeling of the cold air on her open flesh burned like fire.

  
"Do you think I should do a tourniquet?" Ruby suggested.

  
Christina didn't answer, simply pulling her belt off and handing it to Ruby. Ruby tied the belt around her leg as tight as she could, wrapping it up multiple times before securing it shut. Then, she set out to clean the wound further. Between the pain and her body trying to cool itself after the sudden sprint they'd made, sweat pearled on Christina's forehead. It was only then that she realized she'd also skinned her knees and elbows crawling, and so had Ruby, to a lesser extent.

  
Ruby worked silently, cleaning the punctures on either side of Christina's foot and placing it on her thigh, despite it staining her shorts, to keep it away from the ground. She wrapped it up in a bandage which quickly turned from white to red. Then, Ruby removed her shoe and pulled off her sock.

  
"Here."

  
She put her sock on Christina's wounded foot before the blonde could protest. Then, Ruby let her wounded foot rest on the backpack, while she put on her shoe back, and moved to sit beside Christina. The sound of scratching had stopped, replaced by a deadly silence.

  
"Let's give it a few minutes, maybe it'll stop bleeding and we can try to find an exit."

  
Christina sighed.

  
"Let's just hope these things don't find us again."

  
"If they do, I'm ready to fight them off."

  
This made Christina chuckle.

  
"Do you remember that time you broke a guy's nose?"

  
The memory made Ruby laugh too. Four years ago, during one of the festivals Ruby had helped organized, one of the musicians had made some pretty nasty comments at her, and when he'd attempted to grab her arm, Ruby had punched him right in the nose, snapping the man's septum pretty violently.

  
"He seriously had it coming," Ruby replied.

  
"I would have given anything to see it," Christina admitted.

  
She looked over at Ruby with a smile. Lit up only by the flashlights, Ruby's eyes had a gleam deep within like a night star plucked out of the sky and hidden away. Ruby saw Christina's feature softened, she recognized the look of utter adoration and she sighed.

  
"Chris..."

  
"We were so good, baby," Christina said. "We were good, we were so much more than good. We used to count how often people asked us when was the wedding, do you remember?"

  
"Seventeen times," Ruby confirmed.

  
"Seventeen times. In four years."

  
Christina wasn't sure if it was the fact that she'd almost died, that they could die soon, the loss of blood or the look Ruby had just given her, but she needed to say all that she had locked away in her chest, all that she'd wanted to tell Ruby in the past eighteen months, and had never dared pick up the phone to do so.

  
"The last few months, it wasn't really us..."

  
Ruby offered a sad smile.

  
"I think it was though. I think it was us, dragged down by grief and guilt, and we couldn't stand it."

  
Christina sighed.

  
"Is Letitia mad at me? For..."

  
She pursed her lips.

  
"Chris, it was an accident, and it wasn't your fault. None of it was. And even if Leti had ever been mad at you for it, once we knew what had happened... It wasn't your fault. You did what you could, you tried to avoid the guy. It was the fault of the drunk tired truck driver who ran a red light. And he's in prison now, thanks to your bloodhound of a lawyer. I don't blame you for what happened, and Leti doesn't blame you for it. I think you're the only one who still blames yourself for it."

  
Christina let out a bitter chuckle.

  
"That's what my therapist says."

  
Ruby smiled at her, but Christina looked away at her wounded foot.

  
"Did she ever tell you what I told her when I left?" Christina asked.

  
Ruby shook her head. Christina took a shaky breath.

  
"She helped me load Tic in the passenger seat. He was out, and I mean passed out drunk, snoring and all."

  
She managed to pretend that her sob was a chuckle and continued.

  
"I told Leti 'I'll make sure he gets home in one piece' and I drove off. And he never did."

  
Another sob racked her body but Christina refused to cry. She'd cried enough over this already.

  
"Sometimes I wonder if he woke up when the crash happened. If he realized what had happened or he just fell asleep at the party and never woke up. Not that it matters really. I killed my last family member..."

  
Ruby took Christina's hand in hers, squeezing reassuringly. Christina managed to push down her sorrow, and after a few deep breaths, her throat unclenched.

  
"You didn't. You did everything you could to avoid the collision. It was just too late."

  
Christina brushed her cheeks as if to make sure no tears had run down.

  
"Sometimes I wonder if that was why you stopped loving me. Because I killed Atticus."

  
Ruby frowned lightly.

  
"Christina, I never stopped loving you," she confessed. "But I saw you hide in your work, away from everything. I mean, you were barely out of the hospital with a broken arm and you already threw yourself back into work like nothing had happened. I saw you pulling away from me and I didn't know how to make you open up again. It was like when we started dating, but this time I just...I don't know, I didn't understand you anymore. And maybe I should have tried harder but..."

  
Christina shook her head.

  
"No, no, it was me. I don't know, I just thought... and maybe I was just projecting all of my self-loathing onto you. But I couldn't look you in the eyes anymore, because I was scared of what I would see."

  
"What do you see now?" Ruby asked.

  
Christina dared to look into Ruby's eyes again. There was fear like she'd never seen before and familiar love. So familiar and so deeply missed. Tentatively, Christina leaned in. Ruby met her halfway into a kiss. Christina cupped Ruby's cheeks, bringing her even closer. Ruby threaded her fingers through Christina's hair, prompting even more hair to fall out of her ponytail.

  
Christina wanted to shift closer, but as soon as she tried to move her wounded foot, she had to stiffen a wince. Instead, she prompted Ruby to move closer. One hand wrapped around Ruby's waist while the other snaked down to her shoulder. Ruby leaned closer, breaking the kiss just long enough to breathe before kissing her again.

  
When Christina tried to move her hand from Ruby's waist and under her tee-shirt, Ruby stopped her and pulled away.

  
"We may be dead in an hour, but I'm not having sex with you in the ruin of an ancient pyramid with God knows how many hungry monsters in the vicinity."

  
Christina pouted lightly, but she kissed Ruby again before settling back against the stone.

  
"I wasn't going to suggest it."

  
"I know how you get, remember? Miss wandering hands."

  
Ruby sat back down, lacing her fingers with Christina's.

  
"I don't remember you ever complained."

  
"Well, I'm complaining now. I'm saying of all the places I'd want to have reconciliation sex with my ex, here is probably at the bottom of the list."

  
"What's at the top?" Christina asked.

  
"Our old bed."

  
"I think that can be arranged. After a nice dinner, maybe I'll come to pick you up at seven with a bouquet."

  
Ruby rolled her eyes with amusement.

  
"Slow down, Romeo. You can barely walk. Let's get out of here first, then we can maybe plan a date."

  
Christina sighed. She picked up the flashlight beside her and scanned the hole above them with the beam of light. She couldn't see any shadows that a possible open hallway would project onto the ceiling, just bright light. When they fell silent, they heard that the scratching noise had started again. The monsters were still trying to get them.

  
"I don't think we're going to find Leti," Ruby said, to Christina's absolute surprise. "She's definitely here, I'm sure of it, but between the monsters and the layout of this place..."

  
Ruby sighed through her nose.

  
"If they didn't tear her to pieces she probably died of dehydration days ago."

  
Christina smiled sadly at Ruby and squeezed her hand.

  
"You did all that you could. You tried. It's all that matters."

  
Ruby didn't have an answer to that as she silently tried to process the idea. Her little sister was dead, and there was nothing she could do to save her anymore.

  
The scratching became louder, and with a worried frown, Christina pointed her torch to the entrance. It was still untouched, the corpse of the creature stuck underneath leaking whitish liquid like a broken tap. Still, the scratching intensified.

  
"Ruby?"

  
"Don't move."

  
Ruby stood up, taking her flashlight and making her way around the room quickly. Christina lifted her foot off the bag with difficulty and brought the backpack closer. She pulled out the flare gun and another flare and placed it inside. It may not be very effective, but it would be better than nothing. Christina couldn't believe she was longing for one of her father's rifles, the ones decorating the wall in the summer villa's trophy room. She also pulled a few glow sticks and cracked them, throwing them around the room as far as she could. The large cave suddenly glowed with an eerie green light, different from the moss' which had guided them there.

  
Just as Ruby got a hold of what looked like an ancient yardstick, they heard the grinding of stone above them. When Christina pointed the flashlight above them, they saw dust falling from the ceiling, in the perfect shape of a rectangle. One of the blocks on the ceiling was being dug free from its brethren. Sure enough, the next second, the block of stone fell off. It landed heavily, shattering in half. The loud sound of the block falling resounded in the cave and hung in the air.

  
A sharp hand passed through first, then another one, and another. In the palm of their hands, Christina could see eyes. They looked so much like human eyes, it terrified her. Green eyes, brown eyes, blue eyes, searching for something. Then, they found them. The eyelid shut and the eye seemed to be sucked somewhere else, and the lid sunk into the socket. The monsters hissed and jumped down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! And now you know why this is my favorite chapter!  
> Fun fact, the whole story was called "We Were Good" before I decided to rename it right before posting it. The file is still called 'We Were Good' on my computer actually.  
> I was right, the one-shot is probably going to turn out too long. I'll have to rework the beginning a bit to fit better with the middle part I'm writing right now. And then I'll queue it with the Modern AU I've yet to post. I'm thinking either I keep stockpilling short stories or I start working on a bigger one...  
> Anyway, I have to get to class, so I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you tomorrow for the next chapter!


	7. Monster Bash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christina and Ruby are in a bad position as three Tomb Howlers attack them

Three creatures leaped down from the hole in the ceiling, landing amongst the glow sticks on the ground. Christina tried to push herself up, one hand on the stone block behind her. She kept her wounded foot off of the ground and struggled upright as quickly as she could. When she aimed, one of the creatures was snarling at her.

  
Before she could even fire, the creature leaped toward her. In the blink of an eye, it had brought her back down. She was pinned to the ground. Christina lost her grip on the flare gun. When the creature's mouth unhinged, Christina tried to hit it with the flashlight. It bit down on the plastic stick, putting all the strength its jaw was capable of into the bite. The plastic cracked under the pressure. Christina winced. She could feel the creature's claws scraping against her collarbone with every move it made.

  
She struggled for a moment but got her hand on the flare gun again. When the creature let go of the flashlight, it fell into pieces, crumbs of plastic and batteries falling onto Christina. The creature opened its mouth, ready to chomp down on the blonde. She stuck the flare gun in its mouth and fired. The detonation was deafening. Christina's ears rang. The flare lit up through the creature's skin, blasting tangerine light through the room a second before the creature caught on fire. Flames licked out of its mouth as it shrieked horribly. Christina pushed it off with her elbow. It hit the ground, struggling to get up. It stumbled, got back on two legs, then fell, never to get up again. The flare continued to burn it from the inside, as the smell of cooked rotted flesh filled the air.

  
Christina struggled back into a seating position, feeling the blood trickle down her chest from the superficial scratches. Instantly, she reached for the bag and loaded another flare, before looking over to Ruby.

* * *

The moment the creatures had jumped down, Ruby, yardstick in hand, had tried to make her way to Christina. But with three creatures between them, it wasn't easy. One of them she saw turned to Christina as the blonde struggled to get up. Ruby called out but it was too late, and Christina was back on the ground, attacked by one of the monsters. The other two turned to her.

  
The nearest creature leaped at her. The yardstick made for an awkward baseball bat, but Ruby managed to hit the creature as it leaped, right onto its head. The stick snapped in half under the creature's thick skull. The monster fell to the ground, stunned but for a second. The other creature had moved into a flanking position, prompting Ruby to step away as far as she could from the two monsters. She was nearing the ancient metal machines, still loaded with stones. Ruby hurriedly reached for the nearest lever and pulled on it, unsure of what would happen.

  
The platform above the machine lowered suddenly, prompting the creatures to step away. However, the lever was torn clean off. Ruby, once again armed with a bat, faced the creatures. One of them leaped her way, and she tried to bat it away. Its claws scraped her arm, drawing blood, just as she hit its side. It shrieked painfully and fell to the side, and Ruby understood why. She hadn't hit the creature's ribs as she'd assumed, but an eye on its side. The eyelid blinked furiously. Before the creature could struggle back up, Ruby impaled the rusted lever into the eye. The metal bar sank deep into the creature's side, but it somehow got back up. Then she washed with horror as something spherical traveled from the side of the creature to another hole on its shoulder, falling into the socket, revealing the eye from before.

  
There was a loud bang, and a flare crossed the room, prompting Ruby to turn around. The other monster had climbed onto a nearby stone block and was about to pounce on her, distracted only a second by the flare. When the creature leaped, Ruby ducked and it would overshoot its target. Then, she gave a vicious kick into the lever, still buried within the first creature's side. White liquid poured out of the wounded, staining Ruby's shoe. The creature fell to its side with another growl. Ruby pulled the lever free, handling it like a bat again and turning to the other creature, now hanging onto the wall.

  
"Come on, you motherfucker!"

  
It snarled, its jaw unhinging. It leaped. She felt its teeth sink into her shoulder, and she forced the lever into its chest, shattering through bones and tearing up organs. They stumbled back together on the ground. Ruby, feeling the dead creature's vital liquid leaking onto her, pushed the creature aside with a disgusted grunt. The teeth pulled out of her skin and she winced. She had a mark similar to Christina's on her shoulder, an almost perfect circle of punctures.

  
"Ruby?" Christina called out with worry.

  
"I'm alright..."

  
Ruby stood back up and walked to Christina, who was seating beside a flaming body, blood staining her shirt and the backpack between her crossed legs.

  
"I think if we climb over there, we can make it through the exit they opened for us. Before more come."

  
Christina could only agree. She put her shoe back on with difficulty, ignoring the pain. Ruby took the first-aid kit and bandaged her arm, where four deep gashes had been left behind. Then, she picked up all of the glow sticks while Christina reloaded the flare gun.

  
"It's our last flare," the blonde said.

  
"We better make it count then."

  
Ruby held out her hand, helping Christina back up. Instead of letting her go, however, Christina pulled her into a kiss.

  
"Let's get out of here."

* * *

They scaled the stone blocks, Ruby first and Christina lagging behind, using her arms as much as she could. Once they reached the hole in the ceiling, Ruby jumped up and held out a hand to help Christina up. Christina's flashlight had been left behind, a pile of plastic and batteries, along with her bloodied sock. Ruby's flashlight was in the bag, as they each held a handful of glow sticks to light their way.

  
They emerged into a hallway similarly in all manners to the ones they'd gone through, what felt like an eternity ago. To their relief, there was no stalactite on the ceiling. Ruby had lost Christina's marker during their earlier escape, but Christina didn't mind sparing another. They began marking their way through once again. They walked quietly, checking around every corner for stalactites or wandering creatures. However, there didn't seem to be any near them. Christina leaned against the wall with one hand, keeping her wounded foot off the ground as much as she could.

  
"We need to find a staircase," Christina whispered. "We're at least a few floors above the entrance."

  
"Maybe we should take a page out of their book, and start taking down the walls," Ruby suggested.

  
Christina wasn't certain this was the best course of action. How would they dig through the plaster, or whatever was keeping those stones together? Certainly not with their nails. Maybe taking down a wall could be good, but then how would they know which one were the outer wall? Christina was deep in thought, trying to remember if they'd seen slanted walls during their trip. They rounded a corner and she lost her balance, hitting the nearby wall with her shoulder. One of the glow stick fell out of the hand. Both she and Ruby held their breaths. No clicking or scratching followed.

  
When Christina let out a breath of relief, she went to pick up the glow stick. It had rolled away, and gotten caught at the edge of the intersection between two hallways. Christina picked it up and finally understood.

  
"It's at an angle..."

  
Ruby turned around to look at Christina.

  
"What?" she whispered back.

  
"The ground. It's the reason why we haven't seen any stairs. Somehow, we didn't feel it, but the ground is at an incline."

  
To prove it, Christina placed the glow stick back into the corridor they were about to take. As she let go of it, the glow stick rolled down, as if it were on a slope. But when Ruby stepped into the hallway, it didn't feel like there was an incline at all, or that the ground was any different from the previous hallway.

  
"We need to go up," Christina said. "We could be already much higher than we anticipated. If we make it up, we can take those front stairs out of the pyramid."

  
Ruby nodded. They traversed the hallway quickly. At the next intersection, Ruby placed a glow stick in the hallway to the right, and it rolled into the corridor. She caught it back, tried the hallway to the left, and it rolled away from it. She picked it back up, and they took the path to the left.

  
They navigated as such for a while. Both of their cellphones were dead, even though they had no reason to be, and the emergency satellite phone Christina had bought wasn't working anymore. They could have been wandering for an hour or a day, but Christina felt confident enough that it hadn't been a day. Despite her tiredness, she'd yet to grow hungry. Thirsty, sure, and they'd shared a water bottle from time to time. But not hungry yet, which she hoped meant the sun was still out.

  
They came to a T-shaped intersection with a path leading down, and one leading up. However, Ruby quickly noticed the three stalactites on the ceiling. There seemed to be something with these monsters wandering in groups of three. Ruby motioned for Christina who understood the problem quickly. She had an idea that could work, and she seriously hoped that it wouldn't get them into trouble. She motioned for Ruby to step away, and so did she. They sat flat against the wall, and Christina threw one of her glow sticks onto the path. It landed with a bang. Multiple clicking sounds. The stick began rolling down the corridor, green light reverberating on the walls. Then, the three creatures scurrying after it.

  
"Go," Christina whispered.

  
They quickly made their way up, abandoning the glow stick behind as diversion. Once they thought they'd put enough space between them and the creatures, they slowed down.

  
"It's a good idea, but there's only so many times we can do it," Ruby noted.

  
"Let's hope we don't have to do it too often then."

* * *

By the time they reached the top, they'd used four glow sticks as bait. One group, they'd managed to skirt past because it'd been far enough into a hallway they hadn't taken. Christina had held her breath, afraid that one would spot them with its retractable eye, but they'd made it through.

  
They knew they'd reached the top, or at least what they hoped to be the top because the entrance into this corridor was different. There were decorated pillars on either side, with lit torches. Christina wondered who'd lit the torches. Lucky for them, it wasn't guarded, and so they walked in quickly.

  
They entered a large spiral staircase. The steps were thin and very wide. They began climbing up. Christina couldn't help but feel a little lighter. And it might have something to do with Ruby, walking close beside her, so close in fact that Christina wanted to thread their fingers together. Despite the trip back that awaited them, Christina was already a lot more confident in their chances of escaping. This could only be the exit, or near to it.

  
They were halfway up the stairs when their glow stick lit something shattered on the ground. Fist, a big black cylinder, amidst pieces of broken glass. It had been snapped in half, the rubber grip unraveling like a roll of paper around the plastic. Then, a few steps higher, a black box with a silver-rimmed hole in the middle, and a leather strap attached to it. The back screen had been fractured. One of the metal hooks keeping the strap attached to the box had been snapped off. The plastic of the box was scrapped, but it held mostly together, if only for a few pieces which had snapped off on impact. It was a camera. Leti's camera, Ruby recognized instantly. She kneeled and picked it up carefully, taking it with both hands. A few more plastic pieces fell off. Christina stopped behind her. She watched as Ruby cradled the camera against the chest.

  
"She was here," Ruby whispered.

  
"Maybe she's up there," Christina suggested as hopeful as she could.

  
Ruby took a deep breath.

  
"She wouldn't have left her camera like that. Something bad happened to her."

  
Christina pulled the backpack off of her shoulders.

  
"Here."

  
She opened it so Ruby could gently place the camera inside.

  
"The card might still be intact. As soon as we get out, we'll plug it in, see if she recorded anything."

  
Ruby nodded numbly. Christina placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her as best as she could. Once Ruby had swallowed her sadness, she began climbing the steps again. Christina secured the bag on her shoulders and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Are you excited for tomorrow's conclusion? I will post the last chapter and the epilogue back to back because only a monster would wait another day to post the last 500 words.  
> I finished my two-shots yesterday, and now I'm working on a one-shot which will be a sequel to the Modern AU I haven't posted yet, because why not? Additionally, I started working on my previous WIP again. See before I fell headfirst into the Christina/Ruby rabbit hole, never to be pulled out again, I was working on this book about a witch school but it was falling apart. I had all of these awesome side characters but the main character was also really cool, it was becoming a heavy, bloated mess with no structural integrity. Kinda like the pyramid in this story. But now that I've been writing short stories for the past few weeks and after having read Lovecraft Country, I thought "you know what, let's borrow the book's structure". So maybe I'm going to start alternating between working on this WIP and LC fanfiction now, we'll see.  
> Also, I heard that there was a Discord server for Christina/Ruby fans and I would love an invite *wink wink* I heard that it wasn't open to everyone to prevent trolls, but like, if I were a troll I'd be the most elaborate troll in the universe!  
> Anyway, that being said I have a class in fifteen minutes so I'll see you tomorrow for the finale!


	8. The Silver Throne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Christina finally reach the top of the pyramid

The stairs led to a cavernous room, a perfect rectangle. The ground was made of blocks of crystal, so polished Christina could see her reflection in it. There was but a single, giant opening to their left as if an entire wall was missing. To the right was a silver throne.

  
It stood, massive and glowing in the darkness. It seemed to be elevated on a pedestal. It was the only furniture in the room. Christina pulled the flashlight out of the bag as Ruby stepped further into the room. She flashed the light onto the throne. It seemed to shine back. There were gem-like ornaments on its backrest, small rounded beads, hidden behind two leather strap-like decorations.

  
As they stepped closer, Ruby gasped loudly. The throne didn't rest on a platform but a pile of dead bodies. Under the chair's feet were hundreds of corpses in various states of decay. The lowest stratum was made of bleached white skeletons, bones entwined and caught into one another. Above were corpses in barely better condition, with only a layer of paper-thin skin above the bones. The higher they were on the pile, the fresher the corpses were, with rotting flesh still attached to the bone, sunken petrified eyes instead of holes, pieces of clothes hanging on the skeleton's frame. The freshest corpses sat against the throne, seemingly bound to it by metal chokers wrapped around their necks. They were ten in total, and Leti was among them.

  
She was leaned against one of the throne's feet, held at the neck by a metal circlet attached to a chain. The chain disappeared under the throne. She was pale, her chest rising and falling at the slowest of rates. As soon as she saw her, Ruby rushed to her side. Christina limped after her, placing her toes on the ground to move faster even if every step burned.

  
"Leti!" Ruby shouted.

  
She scaled the pile of bodies mindlessly to get to her younger sister. Christina caught up soon after to light her way.

  
"Help me pull her down."

  
Christina began scaling the pile as well. It was more solid than it looked, not at all brittle but as strong as a single block of stone, neither body giving away to the heavier ones above.

  
Ruby was struggling to pry the metal neck-bind off of her sister when she heard a snapping sound. As if the binding had opened of its own accord. Only, Leti's hasn't. The one from the corpse beside her had. The corpse was let go. It collapsed on the pile of bodies, one last dusty breath passing its retracted lips. The binding, however, like a snake, remained upright, seeking something. With blinding speed, it whipped toward Christina. The binding, which now looked more like a pincer, wrapped around her neck and snapped shut. The instant the metal touched her skin, Christina went slack. The flashlight fell out of her hand and tumbled at the bottom of the pile of corpses. The tentacle-like chain retracted until Christina was seating against the throne. Where Leti's eyes were close, Christina's were open, and there was no light behind them.

  
"No, no, no, Chis!"

  
Ruby rushed toward the blonde and began pulling on the binding.

  
"Come on, wake up!"

  
There was a click. Ruby watched as the corpse beside Christina was freed. She knew exactly who the binding wanted now. It rushed toward her. Before it could get to her next, she raised her arms in defense. The chain wrapped around her arm, the pincer raised high in an aggressive stance. It wasn't a metal chain at all. It was warm and slimy, and without hesitation, Ruby pulled on it.

  
A shrilled cry resounded around the room, deafening. Ruby continued to pull.

  
"You don't like it when people fight back now, do you?"

  
She pulled harder. With an even louder cry and a disgusting tearing sound, the chain was torn off the throne. It fell limply from Ruby's arm, shriveling up like a dead plant. With both hands, Ruby got a hold of the back of Christina's binding. She pulled. The chain unfolded from under the chair. Another screech made the entire room shake. As soon as the chain snapped from the throne, Christina screamed. Ruby rushed to her side, pulling the binding off of her neck.

  
"Chris, you're okay, I've got you."

  
Christina was out of breath as if she's just run the length of the pyramid. She was shocked for a moment, and Ruby helped her up.

  
"Come on, we need to get Leti and go."

  
While Christina ran down the pile of bodies, keeping her balance as best as she could, Ruby pulled on Leti's chain.

  
"Give me my sister back!"

  
The chain snapped off easily. Once Leti was freed from the claw, her breathing came back just a bit easier, less shallow. Ruby pushed her sister down the pile and followed quickly, moving away from the throne before it got another chance to catch them. She looked at Christina. The blonde was somewhat back to normal, if a bit shaken, and still struggling to keep her balance. With adrenaline saturating her bloodstream, Ruby picked up Leti and carried her. She didn't remember her sister weighing much, but she felt as light as a feather, and it worried Ruby.

  
They rushed to the end of the room, only illuminated by the green glow stick at Ruby's belt. They emerged into the open cavern, in front of miles of stairs leading down. The ceiling was still far from them, and they saw stalactites in the distance. Without hesitation, Ruby began running down the stairs. Christina struggled to keep up but kept pace nonetheless. Leti was still unconscious, and only her breathing against the crook of Ruby's arm reassured her older sister that she was still alive.

* * *

They reached the bottom without any hindrance. If there were any monsters after them, they were too far to be a threat. They arrived at the end of the stairs, ten feet from the ground.

  
"Hold on."

  
Christina slid down and landed heavily on the ground. She winced, but remained upright and turned around. She held out her arms, and Ruby passed Leti to Christina before following down. The blonde struggled to keep Leti upright, so Ruby picked her up swiftly, and they began walking out.

  
"Do you think they'll follow us out?" Christina asked as they traversed the city.

  
"They better not."

  
They made their way back up the stairs and into the tunnel. Crossing the tunnel wasn't the hard part. It was the cave of crystals waiting for them on the other side. Passing it once had already been difficult enough. Passing it while being wounded, with an unconscious Leti would be almost impossible. But Christina had an idea.

  
They scaled down the room, from crystal to crystal, until they reached the bottom. Tiny crystals crushed under their feet like gravel on the beach. They had to step over larger crystals in the way, carrying Leti over them until they made it to the other side. There, Christina pulled the rope out of the bag and handed it to Ruby.

  
"Be careful," Christina said.

  
"I will."

  
Armed with the rope, Ruby scaled the nearby crystals to make it back to the top of the cliff. Once she'd reached the top, she wrapped the rope around a nearby crystal, and let it fall to Christina.

  
"Mind her head."

  
Christina attached the rope around Leti's waist, then her own, and she motioned for Ruby to pull. With the help of the leverage provided by the massive crystal, Ruby was able to pull both her sister and her ex – girlfriend? They weren't clear over their new relationship status yet – up to the top of the cliff. While Christina managed to get a grip on the cliffside and pull herself up, Ruby pulled Leti's unconscious body to safety.

  
Christina was trying to untangle the rope when they heard scurrying. Though they didn't have a flashlight anymore, they didn't need a beam of light to tell them what was quickly making its way through the tunnel and toward the crystal cave. The rope was promptly abandoned. Ruby was still trying to recuperate from the intense exercise she'd just had to perform, and so Christina picked up Leti, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and power walking forward. She could barely feel the pain in her foot anymore, either because it hurt so much that it had grown numb, or because of the adrenaline her brain had just released. Soon enough, Ruby took Leti's other side, and they traversed the tunnel together.

  
The first snarls came when they were passing Leti through the small opening, into the cave of silver pools. Ruby was on the other side, while Christina was still in the tunnel. They passed Leti through and Christina threw herself after her, landing on her back in the cave. In the green light of the stick, they saw an entire army of creatures throwing themselves at the opening. Their arms could fit well enough. They extended to their terrible length, forcing Christina to crawl away hurriedly. But their skulls were too massive to pass through. They pressed and pressed against the stone barrier, but it wouldn't let them through. If only one had tried to crawl through, it might have passed, but as a group, they only hindered each other. They snarled, passing their unhinged jaw through but biting only warm air. Hands clawed at the stone uselessly. In a few palms, eyes appear, staring deeply at Christina and Ruby. 

  
"Come on, before they break through," Ruby said as she pulled Christina up by the strap of the backpack.

  
Christina stood up and stared at the wall of monsters, stuck in the opening. She stepped back and pulled the flare gun from her back.

  
"What are you doing?" Ruby called from the room's exit.

  
"I'm seizing an opportunity," Christina replied, before pulling the trigger.

  
The flare flew straight to the monsters stuck at the door. It burned against a tangle of limps which caught fire quickly. Before they could move away, all stuck together against the slit in the rocks, one after the other, they caught on fire. Bloodcurdling shrieks resounded all the way to the pyramid. Once she was sure they were burning up, Christina limped up the path to Ruby.

  
"That ought to keep them occupied for a while."

* * *

They carried Leti together through the spiral hallway. The screams of pain from the creatures had continued for some time until everything had grown quiet again. They listened in for more scratching but heard nothing following them.

  
"How are we climbing up out of the pit?" Ruby asked near the end of the tunnel.

  
"I was hoping we could call the emergency and wait at the bottom."

  
"And if your phone doesn't work?"

  
"Then I guess we'll have to climb..."

  
After heaving for a breath, Ruby said:

  
"I'll climb up. You wait down and make sure Leti keeps breathing."

  
Christina shook her head.

  
"No way. I'll climb. You stay."

  
"You're wounded, you've lost a lot of blood and you can barely stand up. You're going to grow tired and faint halfway up and I won't let that happen."

  
"You're wounded too! You lost blood too, you've been carrying Leti this entire time. I'm not staying down there just to watch you fall."

  
Their argument was cut short when they reached the bottom of the pit. They couldn't see the light from the moss at the top. The rope lay on the ground like the shedding of a snake. Christina rushed up to it and inspect it.

  
"Goddamn it."

  
It seemed something had cut off the rope, like a guillotine cutting off a head. Though they didn't have enough light, Christina suspected that the hole above them was no longer a hole, but a ceiling instead. Hurriedly, she pulled out her satellite phone. She held it up toward the ceiling, but there didn't seem to be any signal. She shook it, tried hitting the phone a few times, but nothing appeared on the screen. Beside her, Ruby had placed Leti on the ground. She was looking at the blonde with hopeful eyes, holding the glow stick as close to the phone's screen as she could. When Christina shook her head, she swore and threw the stick away.

  
"We're trapped..." Christina said as she pocketed the phone again.

  
She kneeled to look more closely at Leti while a frustrated Ruby began pacing the room. Leti was still breathing, but her pulse was hard to find. It didn't take a genius to know that she needed medical attention immediately.

  
"Chris..."

  
Christina looked over at Ruby. She'd gone to pick up their glow stick. It had landed on what very clearly looked like a pile of rubble. Christina limped over to the rubble. Ruby began digging through them, picking up heavy rocks and pushing them aside. Despite the pain in her shoulder, she struggled through, jaw clenched. Christina, unable to stand any longer, sat on the other side of the rubble and pushed as many rocks as she could. She clawed at the stones, dragging them away from the hole.

  
Ruby's arms were burning from the continual exertion. She climbed over debris, back and forth, bringing more and more rubble out of what now looked like the mouth of a tunnel. Christina followed as best as she could, digging out the looser rocks and pulling them away. When she paused for a moment to breathe, Ruby continued to dig through the rubble. Even with sweat blinding her, she barely took a second to brush it off before she was back to work.

  
There was a sudden slide-in. A large quantity of dirt falling in, prompting both Christina and Ruby to look away. Dust filled the air, and they coughed. When all the particles settled again, there was a hole of light the size of a hand. It was a dim light, but it blinded both of the women.

  
"I'll go get Leti," Christina said as she sat up and limped back inside.

  
Ruby dug violently through the dirt, pushing it away to make the hole bigger and bigger. When she finally managed to crawl through, she was welcomed by the cold morning air. She looked around. Above them was the cliff atop which was the summit of the mountain. However, she couldn't see the cavity of green moss anymore. Only smooth rock. The night sky was being chased away by deep orange colors, almost red.

  
Leti was passed through the hole before Christina followed. Almost as soon as the cold air hit her face, Christina began laughing. She lay down on the slight slope of the ground and laughed. Ruby had never heard her laughing so loudly before. She joined her quickly. They were teary-eyed and still giggling uncontrollably when Christina pulled the phone out and saw she had a great reception.

  
"We're under the summit of Mount Everett. We found Letitia Lewis."


	9. Epilogue

Letitia Lewis woke up in a hospital bed, eight days after she'd gone missing. Her last memory was of vague caves and green lights. She could have been abducted by aliens for all she knew. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was her older sister sleeping in a chair by her bedside. She looked quite worse for wear. A bandage was wrapped around her arm, and another peeked from under her shirt, covering her shoulder.

  
Leti wondered where she was. The door to her bedroom opened. To her great surprise, Christina walked in, using a crutch to get around and carrying a plastic cup of coffee in her hand, careful not to spill any. She paused when she noticed Leti was awake.

  
"I'll look less clumsy when I can use a cane instead," the blonde said.

  
She placed the cup on a nearby table. She, too, looked pretty rough, with a bandage wrapped around her foot and very visibly skinned elbows.

  
"Do you want me to call the doctor?" she said as she turned to face Leti.

  
"I... Why are you here?"

  
Christina smirked.

  
"You were missing for a little while," Christina explained. "Ruby didn't know what to do, so she asked for my help. We found you under the mountain in an ancient pyramid, attached to a throne."

  
Leti blinked. She was about to call out Christina's joke and ask for the truth, but she remembered glimpses, and it was enough to quiet her. Christina moved closer to the bed, leaning on her crutch heavily.

  
"Of course after they found us they couldn't find the tunnel leading to the city anymore. They couldn't explain why we were covered in bite marks either."

  
Christina sat at the edge of the bed.

  
"You can say whatever you want to the police when they'll come. They'll chalk it up to dehydration."

  
Leti nodded silently. She glanced at Ruby's sleeping form. Christina followed her gaze and smiled.

  
"She only fell asleep an hour ago. She wanted to be awake when you woke up, but she just collapsed."

  
Then, she looked back at Leti with seriousness.

  
"She fought tooth and nail to find you and get you out, so make sure that you tell her she saved your life. That she doesn't have to feel guilty for the few moments she might have given up on you."

  
"Jesus," Leti rolled her eyes. "You two aren't getting back together now, are you?"

  
Christina smirked and that was all the answer Leti needed.

  
"Of course you are. This is why Ruby wanted to stay as far away from you as possible. She said she wouldn't be able to resist your stupid face otherwise."

  
Christina smirked. Then, she pushed herself up from the bed and struggled upright.

  
"I'll go find a doctor, I'm sure they'd like to know their very hungry and dehydrated patient is awake."

  
As Christina moved toward the door, Leti called her back:

  
"Christina? Thank you for going after me."

  
Christina shook her head.

  
"It was all Ruby. I did nothing, really. In fact, I got ensnared by the throne for a moment. It made me relive the worst day of my life."

  
Leti's stomach churn as a similar feeling of helplessness returned to her mind.

  
"Yeah, me too."

  
"Guess for a few minutes we shared the same nightmare, then."

  
Leti could only nod.

  
"Don't tell Ruby, but I'm kinda glad you two are trying this again. Maybe this time you'll actually have the nerve to propose."

  
Christina rolled her eyes, thinking that Ruby had just missed the eighteenth time.

  
"I'll go get you a doctor."

  
She limped out of the room and softly closed the door behind her. As Leti looked over at Ruby, she couldn't help but whisper her name, hoping to wake her up.

  
"Ruby? Ruby?"

  
Slowly, Ruby's eyes opened. A smile spread on her lips when she noticed that Leti was awake.

  
"You saved me."

  
"I did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon: At least half of those 18 times they were asked "when's the wedding", it was Leti  
> So that's the conclusion! I hope you enjoyed this story!  
> I'm still working on the one-shot, which is again looking like it's going to be too freaking long, and I don't know how I always end up with 15 pages long one-shots that I can't post in a single sitting! And then, I actually have a question: do you guys want a sequel to this one? I've been considering it since yesterday. It would be less Indiana Jones and more Haunting of Hill House, but if it sounds like you'd be interested, just let me know!  
> Tomorrow I'm starting to post my next story, I know you guys I've been anticipating it. It's called "The Ice Witch Stole the Ruby", and despite the title, it's a Modern AU. I hope to see you guys then!  
> In the meantime, thank you again for following this story to the end, and I hope you have a nice day!


End file.
